


the boy on the bridge

by glim



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Dreams, M/M, Memories, POV First Person, POV Steve Rogers, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-27
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-17 18:05:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 502
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17565386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glim/pseuds/glim
Summary: I had a dream it was snowing and you stood at the edge of the bridge, looking down into the East River, and you asked me how cold I thought the water was.





	the boy on the bridge

**Author's Note:**

> Written to fill the 'first person narration' square on my Trope Bingo Card for Round 12.

See, I want to say that I've tried my best, Buck, since you've been gone, but I'm not sure I can say that. I'm not even sure I know what my best is anymore. 

I think the best of me went down into the ice, fell into the endless snow with a long, low howl, and lays submerged, encased in the fragile frost of seventy years, a fading, frozen memory. 

Do you remember the last time it snowed back home? What the bridge looked like just before dusk? Bars of blue and purple light falling through the last few flurries as we walked home. You slung your arm around my shoulders and pulled me against your side. 

I had a dream about you. 

I had a dream it was snowing and you stood at the edge of the bridge, looking down into the East River, and you asked me how cold I thought the water was. 

I laughed. I know exactly how cold the water is. I can still feel it when I wake up: at the edge of my lips, in the center of my chest. 

I always dream about you. 

I had a dream it was summer, and we lay sprawled out on the grass in the park. Dusk again, but the soft summer dusk, mellow light falling over you face as you turn and smile at me. Maybe it's a memory, not a dream, because that's the warmest I've ever felt, the grass tickling the back of my neck and the tips of your fingers brushing against mine. 

"Hot enough for you, Rogers?" 

In that dream, too, I laugh. I know exactly how warm your touch is, I know what the span of your hands over my chest feels like, I know how your mouth carries every promise we made to each other and every desperate, longing, half-muttered plea that we stole from each other's mouths between kisses. 

Here's another dream, an old one: 

I'm standing on the Brooklyn Bridge. You rest your hand at my waist, peer over my shoulder, lean in close enough that I can feel the buttons of your uniform press through my jacket. Below us, the river flows and somehow time and space eddy into the swirling waters, leaving us behind in the warmth of a summer evening. Nothing else matters--not the cold depths of the river or the great expanse of the bridge--just you and me and the gathering warmth between us. 

That's not a memory, Buck, that's just a dream, but some mornings, in those moments between sleep and waking, I'll take the dreams over memories. 

In my dreams, you stand behind me, arm around my waist, lips pressed to the back of my neck, and you laugh when I say your name. You fall asleep and wake up next to me, your body warm and whole, and when you say my name, when you murmur it against my lips, it feels like you've always known the best of me.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Richard Siken's poem "I Had a Dream about You."


End file.
